hey a step in the right direction

Sept. 15, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Bush administration, accusing China of a host of trade violations, on Monday announced the creation of a new Unfair Trade Practices Team inside the Commerce Department to address trade barriers that are costing American jobs.

In addition to the new team, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans said he was creating two new posts at the Commerce Department -- an assistant secretary for trade promotion and an assistant secretary for manufacturing who will oversee a new Office of Industry Analysis, which will track the impact of government regulations on American businesses.

All the moves are part of an effort by the administration to show concern for the steady erosion in the manufacturing sector of the economy, which has suffered 37 consecutive months of job losses starting before the recession began in March 2001 and lasting long after it was officially over in November 2001. Since July 2000, manufacturing companies have lost 2.7 million jobs.

Evans also announced during his speech Monday to the Economic Club of Detroit that he will travel to China later this year to take up various complaints about Chinese trade policies. He later told reporters that he plans to spend about a week in China in November.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, charged that the administration is late in addressing the issue. China has dislodged Japan as the country with the biggest trade gap with the United States.

"The Bush administration's attention to China's trade abuses is 2.5 million jobs late. We've been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs for the last 2 1/2-years," said Lieberman, D-Conn. "They're talking a good game, but all it amounts to is a public relations offensive."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the administration's announcement "simply window dressing" to distract the public from disastrous trade policies that are producing record trade deficits.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the administration should be supporting his legislation to impose across-the-board tariffs of 27.5 percent on Chinese imports to penalize the country for undervaluing its currency to gain competitive advantage against U.S. exports.

Evans' announcements followed a series of 20 round-table discussions his agency has held around the country examining problems in manufacturing.

During those meetings, "no country raised more attention as a source of concern than China," Evans said.

"Manufacturers complained about rampant piracy of intellectual property, forced transfer of technology from firms launching joint ventures in China, trade barriers and capital markets that are largely insulated from free-market pressures," Evans said.

He gave as one example the experience of the manufacturer of Wrigley chewing gum, which has a 70 percent share of the Chinese market. Evans said that a Wrigley official told him that the Chinese were violating the company's copyrights by selling pirated gum in the city of Guangzhou and had even gone so far as to copy the designs of the Wrigley distribution trucks and were now driving the same routes.

"That's not a pretty picture," said Evans, who accused the Chinese of failing to live up to commitments it made in December 2001 when it joined the World Trade Organization. China said at the time that it would open up its distribution systems to foreign suppliers and allow foreign nonbank companies to offer auto loans to consumers in China.

Evans pledged that the administration would "aggressively target unfair trade practices wherever they occur. American manufacturers can compete against any country's white collars and blue collars but we will not submit to competing against another country's choke collars."

Repeating complaints Treasury Secretary John Snow made in meetings in Beijing earlier this month, Evans called on China to allow its currency to appreciate in value against the dollar. Chinese officials told Snow they would eventually allow China's currency to be set by market forces but that the time was not yet right for the move.

American manufacturers have complained that China is artificially keeping the Chinese currency undervalued by as much as 40 percent to make American products more expensive in China and other markets where U.S. goods compete against Chinese products.

Evans said the new Unfair Trade Practices Team would work within the department's International Trade Administration while the new assistant secretary for trade promotion would also serve as the director general of the agency's Foreign Commercial Service, which supplies U.S. embassies with Commerce officials whose job is to help American companies operate in various foreign countries.